A Legion Reborn
by Rainbowhawk1993
Summary: It is believed that when a person dies, their soul lives on. Either ascending to the afterlife or return to be reborn into a new life. Now, with the war over and a message sent from Rannoch, Shepard is about to discover that some souls have found a way to return. A post-destroy fan-service to all the fans of one of the most beloved races. Cover photo created by ruthieee from DA.
1. Chapter 1

**Preface: **If you are one of my current readers, you will notice that this story consists of chapters pulled from my fic "Victory." I pulled these chapters from the story to reach out the fans of our two favorite synthetics to contribute something to remove the sour taste in their mouths. Also you'll notice that this chapter's wording is different than the current version of "Victory" and that's because I'm in the middle of a massive revision of the story. I'll continue that story as soon as possible once I post the last chapter of this one. Enjoy and please review.

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><p><em>"What is your opinion about the Geth?"<em>

_"Well, I believe they were good allies in the war effort. I mean, when they attacked Eden Prime, many of us thought they were evil machines who were only good at killing people. But after seeing Shepard's interview about them, they were just slaves to the Reapers like all the other people who were indoctrinated by them."_

_"When my colony was attacked by the Reapers, I ran to the evacuation zone but I was hit in the leg. The Reapers forces were closing in but several geth soldiers came in and held them off. One of the big ones, a prime I think that's what they're called, stood behind me to protect me and another normal sized one grabbed me and carried me to the evacuation zone. They saved my life and won't forget that."_

_"I do feel pretty bad about the geth dying to be honest. They were misunderstood like many of the other species like the Krogan are. What Shepard said about them made me feel that synthetics can be called people too. I just only wish there was something we could do to bring them back, you know?"_

_"I feel that they were people like all of us. They may be different from humans and Turians, but they could think and do things like organics can. It just doesn't seem fair that they had to die with Reapers. It might have made our future even better if we had them as our friends after it was over."_

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><p>The Normandy dropped out of FTL right above Rannoch. Shepard looked to see the view of the planet that was the same as he remembered when he first arrived to the system. The sun shown in the distance on the edge of the planet's horizon illuminating the planet's surface as it rotated. In the shadows of planet's nightfall, he saw lights of settlements that were taking shape across the landscape. They weren't as bright or as concentrated as the lights of settled worlds like Earth and Palavin because of how young the cities were and how very few quarian there were in the galaxy. But it was still a great view to see. Even better knowing that it the people on the plant finally were given something to cure them of their homesickness. After 300 years, they had a homeworld again.<p>

After waking up in a hospital after the crucible was used, Shepard was both relived but also ashamed. Relieved to know that Liara, the women he loved, was alive and by his side when he woke up. But ashamed when he remembered what happened on the Citadel and about his choice to destroy not only the Reapers but all synthetic life, including EDI and the Geth. When he remembered and told his crew when they came to visit him, they were divided about the reality of what happened. As he expected, Joker silently walked out of the room, obviously burdened from the truth about how Shepard deliberately and willingly killed EDI. But James and several of the others felt Shepard did do the right thing instead of taking a giant risk with the other two options of activating the crucible. If he chose to give up his body to take control of the Reapers, would he, the person, be controlling them? Or would an entirely different entity that was based on his mind be controlling them? Or if he chose to leap into the beam to allow the crucible blast to merge organic and synthetic life together, would each species still be unique and distinguishable from the other species? Moreover, would the reapers actually cooperate and do what the species of this cycle wanted or would it be the other way around? It was a lot to think about, but James put it at that Shepard did what everyone wanted, to destroy the Reapers. And that's what Shepard did. But the guilt still lingered. Deeper than the guilt of leaving Ashley to die on Vermir. Deeper than sending the asteroid into the Alpha relay without time to warn the Batarian colonists to get out of the Bahawk system before it was too late.

After being released from the hospital, and after a debrief with Hackett, Shepard accepted his promotion to Admiral. He skipped Captain because under the circumstances, Shepard would have been promoted to Captain for his casualty-less suicide run against the collector base if he didn't wear Cerberus colors at the time. After he received his promotion from Hackett, Shepard met up with Jacob and several more of his crew, past and present, in Rio at the bar Jacob talked about before the final fight. There, Joker sat down with him and straightened things with him about EDI. He forgave him and told him he wanted Shepard to live a happy life with Liara without the burden of him being alone. Shepard accepted it and they joined the group and had a great party together.

After visiting Anderson's resting place and paying his respects, Shepard was given back the Normandy to cruse the galaxy one last time to see what's become of it. The first place was Tuckunka to see how the Krogan were holding up with the Genophage cured. They were doing very well with the help from the Turians and even several of the Salerians. Winks and Kerrahe aided in the cleanup of Tuckunnka's atmosphere while being opposed to the Dalatrass and the current leadership of the Salerian Union. And at the end of the day, Tali had given Shepard a call about a message she received from Rannoch.

When Tali told Shepard about the call, he didn't know what to think about the part that it involved the geth. Did it mean some part of the geth survived the blast from the Crucible? If that were the case, could that mean some of the Reapers probably could have survived the blast too? Either way it was something that Shepard needed to look into right away. After he gathered his crew and said his goodbyes to Wrex, Bakkra and Grunt, he departed with the Normandy to Rannoch. The trip was long jumping through the newly repaired relays to the edge of the galaxy but they finally arrived within several days.

"SSV Normandy we have you on our scanners," the quarian traffic operator spoke over their com. "Is Admiral Shepard and Admiral Tali'Zora on board?"

"We're both onboard," Tali said standing behind Joker's seat next to where Shepard stood. "We've received the message from the Admirals. We're here to see what they needed from us."

"Admiral Xen is waiting for both of you at one of the former geth server facilities. Recommended you use a shuttle dispatch to reach your destination. In the meantime, you may follow the vector to the nearest star port Normandy."

"Roger that. Will proceed with approach vector," Joker said and looked over at Shepard. "Go ahead and figure out what the deal is, Admiral. We'll meet up with you in a little bit."

Shepard nodded and exited the cockpit with Tali following him. They entered the elevator and rode it down to the hanger where Cortez was already ready to dust off. But before Shepard entered the shuttle after Tali stepped in, Liara came up from behind him. Shepard grinned as she proceeded after him into the shuttle and took their seats. The hanger door opened and Cortez pulled out of the bay with the passengers aboard.

"Do you know what this is about Tali?" he said to her as the shuttle descended through the atmosphere.

"I only know that about a week ago an engineering team discovered a geth device that was buried in the ground near one of our newly formed settlements. They unearthed it and they got to work examining it."

"A geth device?" Shepard asked. "Was it functioning?"

"No. Not when they found it," Tali said. "Many circuits were fried but less than all the electrical devices that were caught in the Crucible's blast. That was probably because it was buried in the earth which shielded it from most of the effects of the blast. They said they repaired it easily and its now supposed to be functioning."

"But what's in it?" Liara said. "Is it a functioning geth program?"

"I don't know. Xen might have the answers we're looking for."

Several minutes later, Cortez called out to the passengers. "We're approaching the facility."

The shuttle slowed down and hovered as the doors opened. The air of Rannoch was dry, but unlike Tuchunka, there was no heavy concentration of dust tainting the air. Shepard walked over to the opened door and looked down at the cliff side while Cortez descended. He saw the platform that was built into the cliff and he recognized it was the same one that lead to the Geth fighter server that he and Legion erased. Standing on the platform waiting for him were several quarians. They were still wearing their suits with the face plates on. It was understandable even though the atmosphere was where their biology was shaped from. When the shuttle leveled off, Shepard stepped out onto the platform with Tali and Liara behind him. The female quarian who stood in front of the group came forward.

"Welcome back Tali'Zorra," Admiral Xen greeted her. "And we welcome you back, Admiral Shepard. Under different circumstances, we would have prepared a more formal welcome for you."

"It wouldn't have been necessary, but thank you," Shepard said. "How are your people doing?"

"We've made serious developments with our settlements and our services to the galactic reconstruction have given us a great amount of aid and supplies to help us settle in better. However our progress was slowed down ever since the crucible fired and many of our tools malfunctioned and..." Xen paused and looked down. It was Shepard's cue braced himself. "The geth went offline."

Shepard rubbed the back of his neck when the shame came back to him. But he shrugged it off and put his hand back at his side.

"Tali said you found something a week ago," he said. "A geth device."

"It's more complicated than just the device," Xen said. "If you follow me, you'll understand what it all means and why we wanted you to come here."

Xen turned around and the trio followed her and the other quarians accompanying them. They followed the walkway into the mountainside. When the doors to the facility opened, Shepard saw several quarians spread out over the walkways. Portable CPUs and welding tools were laid out everywhere and the quarians were working extensively at the severs and the terminals all around.

"You've been working on this place for a while?" Shepard asked Xen.

"After the Crucible's blast reached Rannoch, Admiral Korris ordered our engineers to see what was left of the Geth. For the first several months, we've been unsuccessful in finding any trace of any sentient Geth that survived here on Rannoch or any of the salvaged materials the flotilla brought back from Sol. Their weaponry and some of their technology were easily fixed but no geth were functioning. So several weeks ago, Korris asked me to start a project to use the small amounts of fragmented data we managed to recover from geth servers to try to reconstruct the Geth programs that were erased."

Shepard was surprised to hear what Xen said. The quarians were attempting to recreate the Geth from scratch from what was left? Considering what happened the first time their ancestors created the geth and the geth revolted in self defense.

"Weren't many of the quarians wary about you doing this?" He asked Xen.

Xen looked back. "After what you've done for the Flotilla about opening our eyes to how the Geth truly were, mostly everyone followed Korris's statements that we needed to repay them for the contributions they had given us. And the way for that to happen is to give them a chance to live again. I and the other geth experts have used what we learned from the geth to attempt to recreate them. So far we've made small progress."

"Creating a single A.I. can take weeks or months," Liara said. "Several thousand AI would probably take years to create."

"We were wrong about the geth when our ancestors created them and attempted to exterminate them. That mistake caused them to revolt and forced us off our home. After they converted several of their records of their revolt to us, many of us, including me, felt we were the ones who deserved to be exiled. So we believed that the way to redeem ourselves was to recreate them in any way we could even if they wouldn't be the exactly the same as they were before. It will take time but in the end it would benefit the quarian people."

Shepard did feel a sense of accomplishment hearing her say that. It was like the interviews he saw on the extranet after his recovery. Several people said the geth were misunderstood and some even said they forgave them for the damage they've done when they were pawns of the Reapers.

"Wouldn't the council be concerned about you doing this?" Shepard asked. "I know the political machine's in shambles but there are still the laws about creating AIs."

"That law's been talked about to death while you were unconscious," Liara said. "Because of the geth's help, there's been talk about overturning it and allowing research under acceptable circumstances."

"And I suppose this is an acceptable circumstance?" Shepard said.

"It should be at least," Tali said.

"Regardless of what everyone else thinks, we're going to do what we can to let the geth live again," Xen said.

"That's good to hear," Shepard said. "But I'm concerned about what you'll do with them if you manage to pull this off."

"If you're concerned about my earlier statements about bringing the geth back to serve their masters, you don't need to worry," Xen said immediately. "Several quarians who were on their pilgrimage were caught by slavers. Those who managed to escape and return to the flotilla told us about the horrors of their time as slaves. We're better than the Batarians. Indentured servitude will never happen on our world, not even to the geth"

Hearing "Indentured Servitude" gave Shepard an unpleasant kick back to the past. On Illium, he saw a quarian who was about to willingly to give herself to perform indentured servitude to pay off her debts. Shepard couldn't allow that. With his intervention, he got her out of slavery by convincing a Synthetic Insights representative to hire the quarian as an employee while creating a good image for the company of buying slaves then freeing them. Now, after seeing what really happened during the geth uprising, or the mourning war as Legion and the rest of the geth referred to it as, Shepard knew that the geth were no more than slaves to the quarians even though the Geth never saw it as such. He felt relieved that if they managed to pull this off, that the new A.I.s they were attempting to create, or recreate, would not be their servants or anyone else's servants. They'd be their own people, just like Legion and the geth had hoped to be.

Xen lead the group up the platform to where Shepard recognized was the server hub where he entered the geth conscious with Legion. He saw several inoperable geth platforms laying on the floor while several quarian engineers were hard at work mentoring them. Shepard noticed that the platforms were hooked up by cables to several portable CPUs and the server itself. And right in front of the server was what Shepard and Tali were called to Rannoch for.

"Is this the device you found?" Tali crouched down to examine the device. The device was the size of a small crate with an obvious geth design and architecture. The most notable trait was a central glowing light on the front of it that glowed like a geth optic lens did.

"When we unearthed this, a few components were damaged but it was easily fixed. But the amazing thing was that the data that was contained in this is mostly intact even after the crucible's blast reached down into the ground and touched it."

"What kind of data is on it?" Shepard asked.

"We don't know. The data's encrypted heavily. But after examining its design and structure for several days, we've made conclusions that this device's function is essentially that of a Greybox."

A Greybox? Like the device Shepard helped Kasumi retrieve after she joined his crew? A greybox's function was to store the memories of cretin user and could only be accessed by that user or any other user that possessed the correct encryption key. In Kasumi's case, the key was genetic and her key allowed her to access it and relive the memories of her partner in crime and access the information on it that was sensitive to the Alliance. But why was this particular device buried beneath the surface of Rannoch's soil?

"A memory storage device for the geth," Shepard said looking down at the device. "So does that mean that the memories that are stored onto that thing are only accessible by a geth?"

"We assume that might be the case," Xen said. "We haven't been able to find a way to access the information. We brought it here and connected it to the server. After the war with the geth was stopped, this server was repurposed to monitor the development of our settlements. When the crucible's blast came to the planet, the server was wiped clean. We restored the server to working condition and plugged the device in once we repaired it. But not all of the data within the device was blocked off when we examined it. There was one piece of data we could access."

"What was it?" Tali stood up to Xen's level.

"Just a single sentence. A name of someone."

"Shepard's name?" Tali asked.

"No," Xen turned around to the pods that were sitting behind the server. Shepard looked over at the pod brought up to the walkway. What he saw widened his eyes. Inside the pod was a human man.

"Keela!" Tali was shocked for a second. "Is that...?"

"It's him," Shepard said walking up to the pod.

Inside was none other than David Archer.

"Do you know this man, Shepard?" Xen asked.

"I saved him from an experiment Cerberus was performing with the geth over a year ago. They were trying to find a way to use him to control the geth with his autistic mind. I rescued him and sent him to Grissom Academy. The last time I met him was when I helped evacuate the academy when Cerberus tried to abduct the students."

He looked back up at David. Seeing him in a rather peaceful state didn't remind him immediately about the horrific sight of David in the AI core room. Suspended in the middle of the room with tubes coming out of his mouth and cables preceded through his arms holding them up like he was on the cross that Jesus was crucified on while his eyes were propped open with his tears pouring down his face.

"We contacted mister Archer once we were able to retrieve his name from the device," Xen said. "He told us he knew what needed to happen and he came to the Rannoch as soon as he could. When he arrived, he got straight to work on this server. Even though there are no functional geth, he claimed to have established a link to what's left of the consensus."

"The consensus is still functioning without the geth?" Shepard asked.

"We assumed that everything in the consensus was erased when the crucible was used. But recently with David Archer's intervention the consensus is actually reported to be functioning inside this server."

"If it's functioning, wouldn't that mean that some geth are alive?"

"We've been monitoring the readings but it doesn't match that of a functional geth program. Something is happening inside the server, but it's not a functioning geth. We assume the activity is what David Archer is doing inside the server now."

"How long has he been in there?" Liara said.

"He's been in there for over a week," Xen said. "But in the recent days, he communicated two things to us. He told us to bring repaired geth platforms here and hook them up to the server and the other was to bring you here."

For a moment, Shepard was stunned. The geth greybox device that told the quarians to find David. And David getting right to work on the server and hooking himself into the consensus. The pieces were falling together and Shepard started to feel nervous but excited too. All this made him think about what it all meant and he had a gut feeling about where he fit in all of this.

"Did the message say he needed me to join him in there?" Shepard asked Xen.

"We assumed it did. You were the only other person to have interfaced with geth technology so it seems reasonable that he would have wanted to you join him. But we don't know for sure."

Shepard exhaled and the excitement flowed from his body. Liara was right, this thing was something more than just a coincidence with his dream.

"Can you get another pod ready," he asked.

"Shepard?" Liara grabbed his shoulder softly. "What are you doing?"

"It's okay Liara," Shepard said. He expected Liara to be worried. "I went in there before and came out alive and sane last time."

Liara's face eased the nervousness she had. After getting him back by pure miracle, she didn't want him to take more risks.

"Just be careful," Liara said.

The look in his eyes was like the same look when he made the promise to return from the suicide mission against the collectors. And he kept that promise, so Liara had a feeling that he could keep this promise too. Shepard smiled and gave her a pat on the shoulder before he turned to the vacant pod adjacent to the one occupied by David. The pod door opened and he stepped inside. He turned around to see Liara, Tali, and Xen watch as the pod door lowered down.

"Good luck Shepard," Tali said before the pod sealed shut. Shepard took a deep breath and centered his head. He heard the humming of the pod begin to grow. The humming grew louder as it charged up. Shepard remained still and he closed his eyes just as the holographic interface surged around him distorting what was real. It continued to grow loader and loader and until it ceased.

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><p>Shepard opened his eyes. The pod door opened in front of him to show he was no longer in the world of the familiar. But even the unfamiliar world he visited was even more unfamiliar than the way he remembered it. When he entered the consensus the first time, the world he saw looked generic and very organized with shapes coming together to form steps and walkways. He could feel the amount of information that was flowing around him. It felt like every fragment and shape had life to it.<p>

But now the environment was very different than it was before. The generically shaped platforms and shapes that were once organized where now broken into pieces that were suspended in midair. There was hardly any light around him. The only light that Shepard could see was the glow that outlined the broken fragments that swirled around him. All of it felt... lifeless.

But in the distance, he could see a dim glowing light. Like a sun on the horizon only that it had a rather bluish glow. The illumination made him see most of what was in front of him. There was path of cracked platforms that resembled a stairway. It was like the steps of an ancient ruin with several steps shattered and broken. The only difference was that the broken pieces were floating in midair. Shepard moved his feet forward gaining the feel for the environment again. He took slow steps onto the ascending stairs and Shepard walked across path that lead to the glow in the distance.

As he got closer, he made out what the glow was and the area around it. The glowing object was a large translucent orb. Around it was several pieces of the broken platforms scattered around the consensus. But Shepard saw several broken pieces that were put together to form a ring around the sphere. He climbed the steps up to the platform and right in front of him, standing just before the glowing orb, was a silhouette of a human. Shepard didn't see the person's face but he knew who he was. Before long, the human stopped what he was doing and turned around and looked at Shepard.

"Shepard," David Archer said. "You came. Thank you."

"David?" Shepard asked.

"Yes," David had a rather pleasant smile on his face. "I have been here for a time. I have made great progress."

He took a step to the side to reviled what he was moving his hands over. It was another sphere that shared the same design as the large one.

Shepard stepped closer to David and his "project."

"Progress on what, exactly?"

David looked up at the larger sphere, like an artist admiring his work.

"Before you defeated them, the geth reach out to me. They were in danger. They asked me to help them. I accepted."

David turned back to the smaller sphere and brought his hands up to it. His hand moved the sphere around and the pattern shifted on the surface. And above them, the larger sphere mimicked the same motions as the smaller one.

"I connected to them again. Through the connection, they gave me the pieces to help them. When you had defeated them, I would start putting the pieces together. When the quarians found one of the other pieces, it would be time for me to put them together. I came and I brought the pieces to be put together here. With my pieces and the ones they found, it would be completed. But I realize now that I didn't have all the pieces. Only some are missing."

David stopped moving his hands around the sphere and turned back to Shepard.

"A few that can be retrieved now to complete it."

Even though David still spoke in the absent small bits, Shepard had a fair understanding what he was talking about. But the part about the missing parts made him pause for a moment. If David was missing pieces and he called Shepard here, did that mean...?

"Are you saying I have those pieces?" Shepard asked.

"You were the only other who connected to them. A part of them became a part of you. You helped them. And you want to help them again."

David took a step to the side, signaling that he wanted Shepard to walk up to it.

"What exactly am I supposed to do?" Shepard asked.

"Connect yourself to it. The pieces you carry will be put into place and it will be complete."

By "connect," Shepard assumed that David meant to just touch it. After a deep breath, Shepard stepped up to the sphere and looked down at it. Looking down at it made him feel something unusual. After everything that had happened to him and the entire galaxy, he felt a certain acceptance to do things that were unfamiliar to him even if he felt odd about it.

Slowly, he brought his arm up and moved his hand closer to the surface of the object. As he did, he felt a vibration building in his hand that reached up to his shoulder. Shepard hesitated for a second. But he continued to move his hand toward the surface. The vibration grew and stretched to his chest. His hand had made contact the sphere.

Suddenly, his eyes were filled with an array of colors that shifted and changed erratically every millisecond. In that instant, he felt as if his entire mind was shifting outside of his head, like he was receiving another vision from the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime. Shepard didn't know how long it lasted but when his senses came back, he found himself bent over with one hand on the platform he stood on. He leaned himself up and looked to see the sphere was sitting where it was before. But he saw that it now had a red pattern on its surface.

The pattern of the sphere and the new red color shifted across the surface, faster and faster every second. They did so until Shepard recognized the shape of the sphere. It took the form of the Reaper coded geth program Legion had shown to him and Xen prior to his mission to come to the server to deactivate the geth fighters. When the geth program without the Reaper code was shown by Legion, it looked like a geometric nerve cell with electrical surges emerging from its nucleus. When Legion showed ten programs working in unison, the sphere was sending out surges at a quicker rate representing better intelligence. And when legion showed the Reaper coded geth program, it was so much like an organic nerve cell with the electrical surges flowing through organic neural pathways. And right now, the program hovering in front of him was a Reaper encoded geth program.

After a second, the program hovered above him and floated toward the larger sphere standing in the center. When it reached the outer surface, the program dissolved into multiple fragments. The fragments then flowed down to the center and merged form the nucleus of the larger sphere. Within a second the larger sphere morphed to form a large geth program. But it's design was a little different than the Geth program was. The nucleus didn't emit surges that ran through the neural pathways to the surface.

Shepard looked away for a moment to David standing by his side. The look in his eyes looked like he had seen something so beautiful.

"You did it," David said with a smile.

Before Shepard could speak, he looked above to a small holographic shape emerge from above the geth program. It's shape was unusual but Shepard assumed that it represented cluster of information. The cluster came down made contact with the surface of the program.

When it did it dissolved like the small geth program did before. The fragments merged together and ran down one of the neural pathways to the nucleus. After it passed through it, the data ran down another pathway to the surface. When it emerged, it suddenly formed into another translucent sphere, the same one that Shepard saw turn into the geth program.

As soon as the first program emerged, from all around them, Shepard saw more and more data clusters coming from all directions. All of them went into the central program and dissolved into the pathways and emerged as complete programs. While this was happening, the pieces of platforms that were broken were now moving all around them. Shepard watched as pieces whizzed past both of them and come together to form complete platforms. He saw the darkness was lifted and he saw in the distances that light was returning to the entire region. All the broken pieces were forming back together everywhere. All the while, David's eyes were only focused on the large center sphere. Shepard saw several of the newly formed programs float down and land on the platform ring they stood on. One of them landed right in front of the two men. Immediately the program started to morph itself. It changed into several shapes until it took the form of something Shepard recognized immediately.

A second later, the morphed program reclined from its compartmentalized state and stood up on a pair of legs. Shepard saw the others do the same all around him. The one in front of him turned its single optic lens to him.

"Shepard Commander," it said. All the rest looked his way and they all said the same. "Shepard Commander."

Before Shepard could say anything, the floor under his feet started to glow. A circle appeared under him and another appeared under David. He looked over at David again who only smiled at him.

"It has begun," he said before Shepard's vision was blurred with white and he no longer felt his body.

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><p><strong>Author's Note: <strong>Here's a little tune to go with all the feels I hope I was able to give you before you go on to the next chapter.

watch?v=cDgQNZrW8bA

I'll have the next chapter up by the end of the week. See you soon.


	2. Chapter 2

Shepard's eyes opened. His vision had returned to him revealing the sight of the transparent pod door. After a second, the door began to open up. As it did, he saw Liara and Tali come toward him. Like the previous time, he felt disoriented from the transition between the two realities. But this time, he felt even more disoriented after seeing what he saw. He lifted his head up and leaned his torso forward regaining control of his real body again. He lifted up his leg to step out of the pod but stumbled when his foot caught the bottom of the door. Fortunately Liara and Tali were there to catch him. He looked up to see both of them helping him and nodded telling them that he was okay.

He stood up to see Admiral Xen and several of the Quairan engineers turn their attention to the other pod that David occupied. Shepard, Liara and Tali turned to see David awaken in the pod and surprisingly tread out of the pod with a little more grace than Shepard did.

"Mr. Archer," Xen said when David stood before her. "It's been days since you entered. What happened in there? We tracked enormous spikes in activity in the server. It's still going on now."

David calmly turned his head to Shepard before he turned it back and replied with the same grin he had when Shepard met him in the server. "The missing piece was put into place. With what Shepard had provided, everything is now put together."

Just as Shepard walked over to David's side, David turned his body to the Geth platforms. And as if on cue, it had begun.

The light of the optical lenses of all three platforms started to blink on. When the lights were on, the lenses adjusted themselves, contracting and expanding until it found focus. The optical portion of the head of the platforms twitched and then the entire head of each platform lifted up. The moved until all three lenses stopped and looked over at Shepard and the rest of the group that stoop around him. Some of the engineers started to raise their pistols in response to the movement but Xen and Tali hastily signaled them to stop.

The geth platforms then moved their limbs. Their arms moved down to their side while their legs folded under themselves. It seemed that the platforms were moving slower than what Shepard had seen them do in the past. But never the less, the previously nonfunctional geth platforms were now functional and all three of them were now standing in front of the Shepard, Liara, Tali and all the others.

"By the goddess," Liara said while Tali and Xen followed up with "Keelah!"

Keelah indeed.

All three geth platforms moved their lens to Shepard.

"Shepard Commander," all three of them said in unison. Then they looked over at David and said his name in unison too. "David Archer. Thank you."

David took a step forward before looking back at Shepard with a smile.

"We did it." He said to him.

Before Shepard could speak, Xen spoke first.

"How is-" Xen started but stopped when her awe got the better of her. Shepard didn't blame her because he was in as much awe as everyone else. She looked back between Shepard and David. "How is this possible? What did you do?"

David calmly looked back at the three Geth before looking back at Xen and the others.

"We were the only ones who were connected to them. Pieces of them were given to us when we were connected. When they were freed they were given new pieces. Pieces they feared they would lose. They asked me to help them. I accepted and they gave me the new pieces. With all the pieces, and the ones that were missing, we put them together."

He looked at Shepard to indicate who the other part of 'we' was. While the others were still a little confused about what David was talking about, Shepard had begun to understand. The program Shepard had seen in the consensus changing form into the schematic of a geth program running on the Reaper code that Legion had shown to him and Admiral Ron prior to the assault on the fighter base. Then seeing individual geth separate from the main sphere to form individual geth programs that spoke his name.

"Are you saying you rebuilt these geth based on what you learned when you were connected to their network?" Xen asked.

David only smiled and nodded his head.

"Amazing!" Xen said. "I had no idea that we would be able to have any geth operational for months or even years."

The lead geth who stood in front of the other two platforms then spoke up.

"We are grateful that our reconstruction has caused rejoice for you, creator Xen." It said. "If we may ask, we wish to know the status of the colonization of the homeworld."

But before Xen could say anything, Shepard stepped in.

"Hold on. You're saying you want to help the Quairans after being dead for all this time?"

The geth looked over at Shepard. The way it looked at him was the same way an organic would 'casually' look over at someone.

"You wish to know why we are standing in your presence as functional geth?" it said. It caught on quickly. It was exactly what Shepard wanted to know. Too many missing pieces were still lingering in his head.

"Yes," he said.

"Then I am willing to answer," The geth straitened its posture like a soldier did when he stood at attention. But what got Shepard and everyone else was the word "I". What it meant could only mean a number of things that Shepard was still having a hard time grasping.

"In the meantime," one of the other geth behind the one in front said. "We would like ask the creators if they are able to aid us in our current endeavors so we will be able to continue to aid them in the future."

Xen immediately walked past Shepard to the geth talking to her.

"Absolutely," she said with quite a bit of excitement. "We never expected anything like this to happen but Admiral Koris and the rest of Rannoch will be pleased to know about this."

The two geth followed Xen and walked past Shepard down the corridor with the rest of the engineers following them. That left the single geth platform with Shepard, Liara, Tali and David alone with the server and the geth graybox device sitting by the geth's feet. Shepard was the first to speak.

"I think I have good enough idea about how you're here," Shepard looked over at David. "David said that he connected his mind to the geth consensus after the war with the Quairans was over, right?"

"Correct," the geth said.

"But David," Shepard looked over at him. "I thought I sent you to Grissom Academy to help you forget all those things about Project Overlord."

"I thank you for making it quite," David said. "But they asked me to help them."

"Help with what exactly?" Tali asked.

"They said they were afraid of what might happen to them, what they would lose. I was the only one who could help them. They explained and I accepted to help."

"But that's what confuses me," Shepard said. "All this tells me something."

He took a step forward and looked up at the Geth's lens.

"Did you know something about the Crucible?"

If they did know something, why did they keep it a secret? Or why didn't they do anything about it? Hearing about the geth's return to the Reapers from Legion made this circumstance seem out of place. The geth moved its lens around before it begun its explanation.

"After you aided in our reunion with the creators, we offered our assistance in the conflict against the old machine. Our engineers also aided in the construction of the device known as the Crucible. As we assisted in its construction, we studied the design from the schematics and related it to known Prothaen architecture and technology as well as the technology of the old machines. As we learned more about the Crucible as we help construct it, we grew suspicious of its function."

It was what Shepard had expected. But if they knew about how it could harm or even kill them, why didn't anyone hear about it?

"We reviewed the design of the device several times. The known function was inconclusive with very little understanding of what the outcome would be if it were to be successfully activated. From feedback by scientists who decrypted the schematics and the engineers who led the construction of the device, the overall speculation was that the device would be used to destroy the old machines. When our engineers gave their feedback of current speculations, we reviewed possible outcomes of its activation."

"You predicted what might happen?" Shepard raised his eyebrows.

"Yes. We examined scenario after scenario of probable outcomes after its activation. The scenarios that concluded with the destruction of the old machine mostly included collateral damage that would affect functional technology. When we looked at these scenarios, there were no conclusive factors that would suggest that the old machine would be the only ones who would be destroyed."

Shepard hung his mouth open for a few seconds. "So at that point, you knew that the Crucible would kill you?"

"Yes," the geth answered.

Even though Shepard had seen this explanation coming, it still surprised him.

"But if you knew the Crucible would kill the geth, why didn't you say anything about it? You went to the Reapers to save yourselves when the Quarians attacked so you would have lived. I would have thought you might have done that again."

The geth took a small pause before it begun its reply.

"Under previous circumstances, the geth may have returned to the old machine to save themselves. But unlike previous circumstances, the geth were in a new situation and new factors lead to different possibilities and options to consider."

"Like what exactly?" Tali said.

"Firstly, the old machine code allowed the geth to think at a faster rate as individuals. This allowed us to think in more dimensions and understand more concepts from outside sources. Secondly, our interaction and integration with both the creators and other organics allowed us to think and interpret their interaction on a different level."

By different level, it was obviously referring to a level that wasn't just about processing numbers.

"A personal level?" Liara was the one to ask.

"It can be interpreted as that," the geth was a little slow to reply. "Since our creation, the geth only interacted with the creators for only a short time before the mourning war. Ever since the end of the conflict, interaction with organics was scarce. We only interacted with Geth while we observed organics from a distance. All decisions we have made involved the wellbeing of the geth as the primary motive."

"And that's what caused the heretics to join Saren and Sovereign," Shepard said.

"That was one of the outcomes of geth centered interaction," the geth said. "After you aided in rewriting the heretics, they rejoined the geth to prepare to fight the old machines. But the creator attack provoked the geth to find a new means to survive. That was to join the old machines."

"Then what made the situation different when you predicted the crucible would kill you?" Shepard asked.

"When the creators attacked, we were only affiliated with geth. No other society would accept us other than the old machines. But that changed after we were freed from the old machines and were reunited with the creators. When we aided in the creators' colonization of the homeworld and aided in the conflict against the old machines amongst the other species, we were seen differently than the geth had before."

Shepard was starting to see a parallel growing. He lived as an orphan living on the streets without a place to go or belong. The only motive for him was survival. But after somehow managing to survive long enough, he got himself into the Alliance and learned the tools of war but also the tools to make the decisions to benefit all of humanity. He had a new home and people whom he could trust. Anderson, Hackett and all the marines he fought alongside as he moved up the ranks. And in the past 3 years, he found a true family aboard his very own vessel. Amazing what a sense of belonging can do to a person who seemed to have no future in the beginning. And it seemed the geth had figured that out during their journey too.

"You had a sense of belonging somewhere else other than just your consensus," Shepard said.

"We learned on a newer and deeper level a sense of acceptance in a new society. It was more than learning more about organic behavior since we were able to interact with it. In many instances, the examples of sacrifice of one for the many were shown on a larger scale. The values of your militaries had shown this example multiple times over where soldiers gave their lives to save not only members of their own species but of other species."

Primarch Victus's son came to Shepard's mind immediately. How he kept pushing his men to continue on with their mission to disarm the bomb on Tuchunkka even after he made a bad call and got many of his men killed. He got them on their feet to get through the Cerberus forces to the bomb only to have the rest of his squad killed and having to sacrifice himself to separate the detonator before it went off. He sacrificed his men and himself so thousands of Krogan wouldn't parish and keep the fragile alliance between The Turians and the Krogan from falling apart. And in the end, his sacrifice had played it's part in the great scheme of things when the Genophage was cured and the Krogan stepped up to help halt the Reapers on Palavin.

"And all that made you keep the predictions to yourselves?" Shepard asked.

The geth replied, "Yes."

"But wouldn't it have been less risky if you had told the other builders about this? They probably could have come up with modifications to the Crucible so the geth might have been able survive when it was activated."

"It was one of the many conflicting issues we faced," the geth replied. "However in the end we decided to keep it from being known. The conflict with the old machine escalated rapidly and time became a factor. Telling others about the possible collateral damage of the Crucible would only cause worry and conflict amongst the builders. If the Crucible were to be made in time to destroy the old machine and be built to the best of its design, the attention needed to be focused on its completion and not on our survival."

It sounded like something that was understandable after hearing the Geth's story of their integration into the galactic society. But there had to be more to this. When Shepard thought about it, it didn't add up properly. When he put himself in the geth's position, a scenario where humanity was in danger of being eradicated by the device, he knew he wouldn't allow humanity's extinction to happen in order to destroy the Reapers so all the other races would survive.

"I find this hard to believe that you'd allow yourselves to die for the sake for everyone else's survival," he said. "I couldn't do that if humanity's existence was in question."

"And we understood that you wouldn't allow that to happen if you were in the same situation," the geth said. "But under the circumstances we had faced, combined with the knowledge we inherited from our interaction among the organics, the death of the old machine was the primary objective. In the situation we faced, two outcomes were possible. One was the successful activation of the crucible which would mean the death of the old machines and ourselves but the survival of all other organic species. The other was the failure to activate the crucible and the extinction of the organic species. And in this circumstance, weather we would ally ourselves with the old machine again or not, our free will would be compromised. We would be nothing more than what the Prothaens had become when the old machines converted them into the collectors. Having been a pawn of the old machine before, we would no longer choose this option anymore. Thus our decision to continue to fight the old machine and complete the crucible with our predictions kept secret was made."

Shepard acknowledged what the geth said but he still didn't buy it. He looked down at the geth device plugged into the server. "Then what's this?"

The geth looked down at the device and looked back up at Shepard after second.

"It was a result from an anomaly that we came across in our consensus."

"And that anomaly was?"

"If the success of the defeat of the old machines was to happen and the surviving species were to continue their existence, certain technology would have to survive in order for that to happen. In the better scenarios we predicted, the collateral damage the crucible would inflict would be minimal to the essential forms of technology organics would use. Space travel would still need to be possible and the Mass Relays would still need to function for the races to return to their homeworlds and for goods and supplies to flow throughout the galaxy once hostilities ceased. Forms of communication and data storage would also be essential in formulating efforts for reconstruction and reestablishment of societies. In the moderate scenarios of the best cases we predicted, data feeds may be damaged but large amounts of data would be salvageable after repairs would be made. These predictions lead to the construction of the Arks."

"Arks?" Shepard looked down at the device again. "As in Noah's Ark?"

"The story of Noah was a story that mirrored many aspects of the consensus we had developed. The story tells us about the human god sending a worldwide flood to cleanse the earth of the corruption and evil that had taken a hold of it. But in showing mercy, god told Noah to construct an Ark so two of each animal species would be spared from the flood. Once all life on the planet had perished and the floods receded, the species that were protected in the Ark would begin to reproduce and continue their species' existence. Though the story is inaccurate and only regarded as myth due to the proofs of evolution, the morals of the story reflected that of the products of the consensus we developed."

It was the missing link that Shepard had been looking for. But other than that, Shepard found if fascinating that the geth referred to the story of Noah. Though religious beliefs were subpar with the public after first contact, the stories of the bible were cherished as important and symbolic to the development of humanity.

The geth continued.

"With this anomaly, we found a way to allow our existence to continue after the Crucible would be activated. Prior to the assault of Earth, we constructed several Ark devices to store the memories of the geth. One single device could not contain all the memories of all geth so multiple Arks were created to store as much as possible. After their creation, we uploaded our memories into them and hid them in several locations on the homeworld and in the Attican Traverse. From what we remember from this Ark, it contains the coordinates of each Ark. Once found, we can relearn the rest of what we were."

Shepard immediately looked over at Liara who was already looking his way. From the look in her eyes, it meant that they were both thinking the same thing. The geth had taken her idea of her information storage units to heart. In case if they failed and the Reapers succeeded in this cycle, then the people of the next cycle could know of the past civilizations and about the Reapers so they would succeed where they didn't.

"And I suppose that the reason why you only stored memories into these has to do with something in your consensuses?" Shepard asked the geth.

"We did not upload an entire geth program into this because of the basis of our predictions of our destruction along with the Old Machines."

"And what was that basis?" Liara said.

"It was a theory that reflected another theory that humanity had developed during its pre-space flight era. During the age of human history that was referred to as 'The Cold War,' the two most powerful nations possessed the power of nuclear fusion. The development of nuclear weapons raised fear about the destruction of all life on the planet if humanity were to unleash their nuclear arsenal upon themselves as the Krogan had done. Once the initial blasts of the nuclear holocaust ceased and the radiation of the fallout dissipated, it was theorized that those few creatures who survived would emerge as the dominate species of the planet. The most notable life forms were insects, which included the cockroach. Due to simple biology, insects are less susceptible to radiation and are able to survive higher levels of radiation than life forms with a more complex biology can.

"This theory reflected the situation that we faced. If synthetic life forms would die from the effects of the crucible because of a complex collection of data that works in junction with each other to create a functional life form, then the only possible pieces that could survive were simple forms of data that do not fully function on their own. This paralleled our predictions about the best possible outcomes of the crucible's blast."

"That makes sense," Liara said and Shepard looked over at her. "When the crucible fired and hit the Normandy, my information network was scrambled for a short while. But when we got the network back online, most of the data I had stored survived. There were only a few errors and data corruptions but when those were fixed, most of all the data was saved. Within several weeks, the extranet was functional again."

Shepard looked back at the geth when Liara finished.

"So you stored your memories into this device but it wouldn't keep yourselves alive. I'm guessing that's where David comes into this isn't it?"

"Yes," the Geth looked over at David.

"They told me they needed my help," David said. "Their memories were safe but they themselves would die. They told me of a way to recreate them."

"How was it possible for you to construct a new Geth program so quickly?" Tali asked. "It'd take a long time to create just one."

The geth answered the question. "When David Archer accepted our request, we had created a method to allow him to do it. We allowed him to integrate into our consensus to allow his mind to inherent the means to recreate us."

"So you let David inherit a geth program?" Shepard said. "I find it hard to believe that it would fit in any human head without the person going crazy."

"Oh you're the one to talk," Liara's hand touched Shepard's shoulder. "You've survived being given visions from Prothaen beacons twice and given the cipher to make sense of it."

Shepard smiled remembering. He was surprised at how he was able stay sane all these years with all the trauma and weird things that were put into his head. The visions, the cipher, and integrating into the geth consensus partially in Project Overload and fully with Legion accompanying him.

"It wasn't a full program," David said. "It was the means to create one."

"How does that work?" Tali said.

The geth answered. "It is a complex array of algorithms we had created when we had inherited the old machine code. It mirrors the process of organic reproduction. The biology of an organic female contains the functions of creating a newborn when the genetics of the father species and the mother species are integrated. We allowed David to inherit these algorithms when he connected to our consensus. Because these algorithms were complex, they were in danger of being broken or destroyed when the crucible would be used. An organic mind would not be affected and any information David would inherit would be protected. Once the crucible eliminated the old machines, all that was needed was to have the mother and father codes to be put together.

"A small piece of each geth was stored into the Arks to accompany the memories each geth uploaded. These small bits of data were like the unique coding of organic DNA. And because these codes were simple, they would survive along with the memories stored within the Arks."

"So you essentially separated the lock from the key," Tali said. "You allowed a part of yourselves to be reconstructed later on when the unique code was combined with the algorithm David used."

"And when you were created you could inherent the memories of the previous geth instantly," Liara finished.

"Correct," the geth said. "Unlike a newly born organic, synthetics do not need to learn the skills as they develop and grow into adult hood. When I was created, I inherited the memories in this Ark and learned what the geth knew before the Crucible was activated. I know how to operate this platform as well as operate geth devices, weapons and vehicles. In addition, several files of events we experienced or downloaded were stored into this device to be shared with the other geth that would be created. Along with me, several thousand newly conceived programs were replicated and are now operational within this server."

"So if David inherited the method to create new geth, why did you need me to come along?" Shepard asked. "Tali said that David communicated my name to Xen through the server after he was plugged in there for nearly a week. What did I do?"

"Codes were missing," David said "Not everything was passed on to me to complete the puzzle. You were the only other one who had connected to them."

"How did you know I would have them? I don't remember connecting to the consensus to have a set of algorithms drilled into my head."

"I didn't," David said. "I hoped you would have it. And you did have it."

The part where David said "I didn't" gave Shepard a sense of momentary worry. If David wasn't able to complete the puzzle, then the geth wouldn't have been able to be recreated. But despite the what if, Shepard focused himself back into the present.

"But how did I get what you needed to complete the algorithms?"

The geth spoke. "When you entered our consensus for the first time, the one you refer to as Legion guided you to purge the server and recover the data corrupted by the old machine. And it was later revealed that Legion possessed the old machine code that it used to allow us to have true intelligence once we were freed from the old machines. Through that instance, parts of legion and parts of the code were given to you. And with your organic mind surviving the crucibles blast, the fragments of the code survived with you."

It was something that gave Shepard a moment of pause. All this wouldn't have been possible if he hadn't reconnected to the consensus to give David the missing pieces. But if he hadn't survived the blast…

The geth took a step forward.

"Without your assistance, our reconstruction would not have been possible. And because of you, we are free of the old machine's influence now that they are destroyed. You allowed us to live and give us a chance to allow the galaxy to survive and build a new future. Like every other species, we are indebted to you. Indebted for letting Legion join you to defeat the Collectors and to rewrite the heretics. Indebted for your actions to invoke peace between us and the Creators. And I am indebted to you to return and allow me to live again."

It reached out its hand to Shepard. Hearing the geth's words impacted him more than any flattery he had received from other people. He made a serious impact on the geth and Quairian's future because of the risks he took to try to find peace between them. And now they were alive because of their moment of freedom to compose a way for them to survive while ensuring the Reapers would be destroyed. And he was able to give David the final pieces to complete the geth's reconstruction. He had so much reason to be proud about himself. He looked down at the geth's had and he felt his arm reach up slowly. But it never came up to have the hand take a hold of it. It was when the thoughts had returned to him about that moment on the Citadel. His face suddenly cringed and he pulled his hand back down to his side and took a half step back. The geth understood the body language and brought its own hand down.

"Is there something that disturbs you?" it said.

Shepard sighed deeply.

"I don't see myself as your hero. Not because I turn down all the praise everyone gives me, but because of something that happened with me and the Crucible."

The geth's lens twitched slightly before it said, "Do you wish to talk about it?"

How would he break the truth to them? Just flat out like he told his crew and Hackett? Might as well. No need to hide the truth or lie anymore especially with the galaxy getting a great footing in its new future.

"Might as well," Shepard closed his eyes and took a breath. "What was the most recent memory you have before the Crucible was used?"

"The last memories that were transmitted into this Ark specifically say that the Catalyst was discovered to be the Citadel. At that time the old machines had seized control of it and moved it to the system of Sol. Details of the battle that ensued were not recorded due to the Arks being stored into their hiding spots we designated for them prior to the departure to Sol."

Shepard suspected as much. "Well the battle took place at Earth. We took heavy loses but I barely managed to get into Citadel and open the arms so the Crucible would be docked with it. After that, I found myself talking to the Catalyst itself. It turned out it was the intelligence that controlled the Reapers."

"The intelligence the being known as Leviathan had created millennia ago to solve the issue of synthetic and organic conflict," the geth said as a statement rather than a question.

"The same," Shepard said a little surprised that the geth made the connection to Leviathan. The secret of Leviathan wasn't kept behind the vial entirely. Several of the council governments learned this information as well as the geth. "The only way for me to activate the crucible was through what it was able to do with Crucible. It said that its purpose was overdue and the Crucible would end the cycles but only if I chose a method that the Crucible provided. And there were three ways it could have been activated. The first was what you predicted. The energy of the blast would destroy the Reapers and you too.

"The second option was for me to control the Reapers. I'd lose my body but my consciousness would be somehow digitized and I would take the Catalyst's place to control all the Reapers. I would be able to tell the Reapers to stop the harvest and they'd do what I'd want them to do.

"And the last one involved sacrificing myself to somehow make the Crucible merge all organic and synthetic life together. Humans and all other organics would be integrated with synthetic technology and synthetics would be able to understand nearly everything about organics. If I went that way, it would have made you even closer to the Quairans and the others."

As expected, silence followed after Shepard had finished. He didn't know how the geth would react to his confession. Legion had said before that synthetics react differently than organics do. If an organic learned the truth about something that would or did kill a great number of their species, they would be angry at the cause of it. When Wrex learned of the bomb planted on Tuchunka after the Krogan Rebellions that nearly detonated and killed millions of Krogan on the planet, he nearly lost it in front of Primarch Victus. But Shepard managed to defuse the situation and get them to cooperate until they cured the Genophage. But the geth on the other hand reacted differently when they were issued something hard against them. After the quairans tried to kill them, the geth drove them off of their world in self defense. When he talked to Legion about the geth's opinions on the quairans, it said that they didn't hold anything against them like organics would hold a grudge. But telling the geth in front of him the truth about the crucible was something that Shepard didn't know how the geth would react. After a few more seconds of silence, Shepard broke the ice to tack on something at the end.

"I didn't know what to do, honestly. I wanted to keep you alive but..."

"The threat of the old machine was greater," the geth said.

"I guess so," Shepard blankly said in return. "And in the end..."

"You chose to destroy the old machines," the geth finished again. Shepard knew that the geth's vocal communication voices were monotone but he could tell that the geth wasn't acting hostile at all.

"And you're okay with that?" He asked.

"You were the one who could activate the Crucible at the time. So the choice came down to you, not us. And as of now, the geth are alive again and the old machines are destroyed."

"Yeah but I didn't know that you had your back up plan," Shepard said.

"No. But regardless, the geth are alive now even after the choice you made. Furthermore, now that I've analyzed what you told me of the Crucible, based on past choices you made, we would have known you would have chosen to destroy the old machine rather than an alternative that would allow the old machines to live and perhaps have influence in future interaction and development of your species."

Once again Shepard was taken back this time to before the war even started.

"You're talking about my choice Legion witnessed about either destroying the Collector base or only killing the Collectors so Cerberus would have the Reaper larva to themselves?"

"When we looked on this decision based on what Legion shared with us, when you made the choice to destroy the base and the infant old machine, we concluded several factors about why you did so. The first was the base of moral value of the humans who were processed to form the infant old machine. It gave you reason to avenge their deaths even when potential benefits would be gained for its study.

"And there was the factor of the distrust you held against the Cerberus organization. You saw them as a blight of your species' society almost the same we saw the heretics in ours. Handing over a nearly functional infant old machine might have been seen as an equivalent as giving an irrational or extremist organization a weapon of mass destruction for them to use on unsuspecting victims.

"Now observing at the situation of the Crucible as you described, we assumed you would have chosen to destroy the old machine even at the cost of our lives based on these factors that lead to your choice to destroy the infant old machine. Furthermore, we would have preferred this outcome."

Shepard was rather surprised about what the geth told him. How they actually predicted he would destroy the Reapers at any cost even when there might be a costly side effect to it. "You really think so?"

"Controlling the old machines reflects the decision you turned down at the collector base. You rejected the chance for humanity to attempt to understand the old machine and use the technology for your own purposes. If you were to take control of the old machines, would that be an equivalent to giving the infant old machine to Cerberus?"

Shepard opened his mouth only to feel the words stop on his tongue. What the geth said made him realize that it was right. When he made the choice to destroy the reaper larva, he didn't know the real reasons but what the geth said made sense and the reasons did sound like why he made his choice. This was everything that he had said to the Illusive Man aboard the Citadel right before the Crucible was docked. He told him he was be playing with things they didn't understand and told him of the risks if it failed. And if he was right and the idea of control was an illusion, their only chance to save humanity would be gone.

"And this choice to merge organic and synthetic life together," the geth moved on. "While we would have considered the chance for us to have the ability to truly understand organics, the ramifications of this choice would go against the basis of the belief the heretics went against when they joined Nazaria. 'Geth build their own future'. "

And once again Shepard was stopped in his tracks. How could he have forgotten the saying Legion said? And from what the geth told him already of the new geth's consensus to die before submitting to the Reapers ever again, it all made sense.

"If the merging had happened, our future, and the future of all other organics may have been altered drastically with the old machines in question. We wouldn't be able to build our own future."

Shepard rubbed the back of his neck. "I've already told Hackett that those were some of the reasons why I ruled that out first thing. But even if you sound like you're okay with me wiping out the geth, I'm still not feeling okay about it."

"Perhaps the question you should ask yourself is this," The geth took a step closer to Shepard and he looked up at it. "What are the advantages for humanity and all other organics now the old machines are gone?"

Shepard knew the geth was trying to change the subject which meant that it had no longer had an interest in the subject he was going with.

"We're free to rebuild what was lost," Shepard said. "And now that everyone's working together, we have a better chance of having a better future than we thought was possible."

"And was this what you hoped to achieve when you fought against the old machines?" the geth asked.

"My only concern was the survival of humanity and everyone else. But when I looked passed the conflict I was in, that was one of the hopes I had. After seeing the Krogan and the Turians working together and seeing you and the Qaurians working together, it gave me hope for a better future for everyone. And when I look around me now, seeing the Batarians starting to set aside their feuds and heal their relationship with us, many of things that I hoped for is now a reality."

Shepard found it a little funny that the geth had managed to get him to come to realizing why destroying the Reapers was the right thing to do. He guessed they really did learn a thing or two about organic behavior. Sure, the geth wasn't a psychologist, but it was pretty impressive considering what it did for him.

"But the thing is," he said. "I just need to know that the geth don't have anything against me now that I told you the truth."

"We have been saved by you twice before and you have given us the chance to build our own future. Though we have lost several of our numbers and our progress has been lengthened as a result, we're still alive and we will continue to build our own future regardless of the length it will take. We will rebuild and relearn what was lost, as every other specie will now do. We are still indebted to you and I thank you."

The geth brought its hand before Shepard again. Shepard took his time lifting his arm up again. But this time, the things that were weighing it down were slowly being lifted.

He felt relief knowing that in the end, he made the right choice for the whole galaxy and one of the ramifications of his choice had fixed itself. His hand came to the geth's hand and he shook it.

"I thank you Shepard Commander," the geth said.

"You're welcome," Shepard said. "However I'm afraid it's Admiral now."

"Acknowledged," the geth said. "I will now go to consort with the creators to aid in our reconstruction."

Tali stepped up. "I'll be happy to help with that. The flotilla recovered many of the platforms and ships from outside the sol system and brought them back. Given time, we should have them operation for you to use in no time."

"We are grateful," the geth said. "Once we reacquire more platforms for use and restore our fleet to working condition, we will continue to aid the creators and aid in the endeavors humanity and the other species in the future. "

"We appreciate the help," Shepard said. "Just don't overwork yourselves. You just came back from the dead you know."

The geth was about to leave with Tali when Shepard thought up another question.

"There's just one last question I need to ask before you go," Shepard said. The geth and Tali stopped and turned to face him.

"What do you wish to know?" the geth said.

"If you have a code of a previous geth, does that mean you're that same geth before the crucible fired?"

The geth took a pause and answered.

"We have speculated this topic. In logical terms, the answer is no. I am not the same geth program. I may contain the memories and a portion of a code of a certain geth that existed before the crucible claimed its life, but this platform is different than the one before and the rest of the coding is new. However, we have determined that something of the previous geth had lived on into me. Something more than just the father code the previous geth passed on to be used to complete my construction"

Tali already had the answer, "Your soul survived."

"In many human cultures, specifically Hinduism and Buddhism, it is believed the soul of a person who dies is reborn into a new life form to continue its journey to enlightenment. When we came to our consensus of the use of the Arks, we knew that the geth who would fight the old machines would die. But our ideas, memories and our knowledge would live on in the new geth programs that would be created. In other terms, I am a 'Reincarnation' of the geth."

The word reincarnation stirred something inside of Shepard. It sounded truly appropriate. The geth who fought the Reapers on earth had died when the Crucible's blast reached them. But their souls had found their way back to the new geth that were now living inside the server.

"Well I'm very happy that the geth are alive again. It means a lot to me."

"We are grateful to know that our reincarnation has given you rejoin Shepard Admiral. We look forward to aiding your species in the future."

The geth and Tali walked out of the room leaving Liara and Shepard alone with David. David looked over at Shepard with the same smile on his face.

"Are you okay David?"

"You made it quiet," David said. "I am better. They're back, and I feel much better. I will remain here to oversee their rebirth before I return. Thank you for everything."

David turned to face the server and got to work with it.

Shepard looked over at Liara and he saw the same feeling that she had. After their chat aboard the Normandy after his nightmare, this was exactly what Liara had hoped to have happened. Shepard was vindicated for his choice. Humanity's synthetic allies were brought back from extinction while the Reapers were gone for good. It was something he could rejoice about.

Without a word, they embraced each other in their arms. David looked over at the pair and all he could do was smile for the happiness they expressed for each other and the race he helped bring back to life.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's note:<strong> I hope you've enjoyed my little contribution to the Mass Effect community in making the best ending better. As always, please give a review. I want to know if my theory is good and/or believable from the people I write this for. Again thank you very much and please spread the word about this story and my idea that makes the best ending perfect.


	3. Chapter 3

**ANN Report:** _Tonight we discuss a recent event that's as shocking as it is amazing. After the fleets arrived at Earth to fight the Reapers, the Geth, who aided in the assault after they were freed from the Reaper's control, had shutdown along with the Reapers. But we're now getting reports from the Quairan homeworld of Rannoch that they have been successful in reactivating several Geth units. Several of the Quairans have been keeping quiet about how this was accomplished but they have confirmed that the geth are functional again. Regardless of the potential political repercussions the my face from the new Citadel Council, the Quairans have commented that the revival of their synthetic creations was a major success for their people. Though the debate about their resurrection is still hotly debated by many officials and people alike, the fact is known that the Geth are alive once again. Only time will tell if they will cooperate with the rest of the galaxy and if the rest of the galaxy will cooperate in return._

* * *

><p>Hackett's pause was a lengthy one. As long as the one he took when he was informed of the living Prothean found on Eden Prime. When his hologram looked up at Shepard, he was baring a grin on his face.<p>

"It's like the old saying isn't it?" Hackett said with a grin. "Life finds a way."

"It certainly is," Shepard said.

"Well Shepard, it looks like you've been vindicated yet again."

"It certainly feels good knowing that one of the consequences of my actions managed to fix itself. You don't know how grateful I am for this."

"All thanks you for making everything happen."

"Because of me giving the missing piece?" Shepard asked

"Because of your determination to make things right," Hackett said. "If you hadn't accepted the Geth you encountered on the Reaper dreadnought and let it help you on your mission, all of this may not have been possible."

If it hadn't been for Legion, Shepard wouldn't have given the geth a second thought to understand them. And in return, if it hadn't been for Shepard, the quairans wouldn't have spared the geth when they were vulnerable. And after all that, it lead to the geth conceiving a plan to preserve themselves so their people would live on after the Reapers were destroyed. Good actions don't go unnoticed he found out yet again.

"It's like I told you when you asked me why I chose you to do the things that needed to get done," Hackett said.

"Thank you Admiral," Shepard said. He refrained from calling Hackett sir now that he was of the same rank. But saying Admiral was acceptable to say by anyone of any rank. "The geth are in the process of repairing and reacquiring their equipment. Once they have sufficient platforms and ships operational, they'll search for the remaining Arks out in the traverse. They're also expecting to move through Sol to find the bulk of their fleet outside of the system. After that they'll be happy to aid us in any way they can."

"Considering how well they helped with building the Crucible along with the Rachni, we could defiantly use their help especially with the Citadel," Hackett replied.

"The Quairans wanted me to stay for a while to formally thank me for what I've done for them. I'll continue this tour once that's over with."

"Go ahead and take your time with it," Hackett said. "You've earned every moment of this tour. Once everyone's ready we'll have the ceremony on Earth. Just be sure to have the speech ready along with the game plan for the interviews and handshakes that'll come after."

"I'll be ready," Shepard said.

"Then I won't keep you. Hackett out."

The hologram dissipated and Shepard turned back out to the war room. Tali stayed behind with Xen, David and the engineers to aid the geth that were in the server while Shepard and Liara were picked up by Cortez. He brought them back to the Normandy which was docked by the largest settlement which was designated to be the new capital of the planet. When Shepard looked around the settlement, he was surprised how much the quairans were able to accomplish in the amount of time after they settled on the planet. The minor settlements were small rural areas like the farming areas Shepard came across on Eden Prime. They were living in makeshift homes similar to the huts many human colonists used on their own developing worlds. The agricultural samples were already being put to use and the crops were being grown at a good rate.

But in the new capital, there were skyscrapers in the process of being built as well as several roads and walk ways to form the city. The geth certainly had been busy with constructing the city but the quairans had their work cut out for them taking over when they died. But still it was pretty impressive to see what the quairans had made like what the krogan had been able to do with the help of the turians and salerians.

When Shepard arrived at the Normandy and told the crew the news, they rejoiced too. They didn't talk to him much about Shepard's choice with the crucible only that it turned out okay in the end. And Shepard was okay with that.

"Admiral," Traynor said when Shepard walked into the CIC. "Tali arrived with one of the geth. They said they wanted to talk to you down on the crew deck."

"Thanks Traynor," Shepard said and went to the elevator right away. The doors opened and Shepard stepped out and turned around into the mess hall. He saw Kaidan standing by the door to the med-bay.

"Did Tail pass through here?" Shepard asked Kaidan.

"The geth and her are waiting for you in the AI core," Kaidan said. "And they said that Joker'll want to come down here too."

When Shepard put together Geth, AI core, and Joker, it meant something that sounded almost too good to be true. After the great miracle that happened, could it be possible another smaller one was about to happen too?

"Go ahead and call him down," Shepard said. He walked into the med-bay and continued all the way to the backdoor that opened to the AI core. When Shepard toured the ship before he departed from Earth, he didn't enter the AI core because it was closed off for being inoperable. That and Shepard didn't feel he could handle going into a shell of one of his squad mate's self. The door opened to reveal both Tali and the geth she came aboard with. The geth was at the main AI console moving its fingers across the control panel. Tali was standing at the end of the room looking down at the platform where Legion was placed after Shepard acquired the Reaper IFF. Before Shepard could approach Tali, the geth looked up and turned from the console to him.

"Shepard Admiral," it said. "We thank you for coming."

"What's going on here?" Shepard said.

Tali walked up next to the geth. "You know how the geth came up with their choice to keep all their perditions about the Crucible a secret?"

"How could I forget?"

"Well there was one factor that helped play a role in it," Tali took a step to the side and turned to the end of the room where she was before. When Shepard looked to see what was there, he saw something he didn't expect to see.

It was EDI's body laid across the platform like the time when it was brought aboard the Normandy after they escaped from Mars. Shepard never asked what became of EDI's body. But now he knew. Whether it was because of sentimental value for Joker was to be seen but that wasn't relevant as of now.

"You know that conversation you had with her?" Tali said. "About the human prisoners held in camps on Earth and how they lied about other escaping prisoners?"

That conversation was something that Shepard remembered more than any other conversation he had with her. She had a hard time understanding why human prisoners were acting the way they did when video was captured inside the prison camps. The Reaper captors told the prisoners that they would live longer for each prisoner they reported to escape. But unlike her predictions, the prisoners fed misinformation for the sake of those escaping, even at the cost of their own lives. In that moment EDI learned of the values of life that meant more than just self preservation. At that moment, she said that she would alter herself preservation protocol to be willing to die if the moment demanded it.

"It was one of the better conversations I had with her," Shepard replied.

"She seemed to believe it was one of the most important things she talked to you about," Tali looked over at the geth. "Important enough for her to share it with others."

Shepard looked over at the Geth who begun its explanation.

"Several weeks before the assault to retake Earth and the Citadel, EDI transmitted the details of the conversation to us. With our consensus being developed, the data she shared contributed greatly to our decision to be willing to die to defeat the old machines. In return, we revealed our predictions about the Crucible and the possible danger she was in if it were to be activated. We then offered to allow her memories to be stored within one of the Arks. Initially, she told us she would think about it having come to her own decision to be willing to die if it were necessary."

"But she accepted in the end?"

"Yes," The geth replied. "Prior to the assault of Earth, she transmitted most of her memories of the time she was Normandy's AI to us to store into the Ark. Any memory before then was not transmitted. We kept what she gave us in a separate data nod that would not be accessible by the geth when the reconstruction was complete. With her memories, her unique code was stored within the same node."

"And now you can repeat the same process to 'reincarnate' her?" Shepard asked.

"We have altered the algorithm David Archer had inherited and constructed within the server to allow the AI created this way to be separate from the geth. Once the process is complete, the data can be transmitted into the blue box and can be activated. Due to the fact this blue box will inherit the same data it once had with only small alterations, the personality of the construct may resemble that of the behavior of the construct before."

That was one of the hopes Shepard had if this was what he thought what it was going to be. From what he learned about blue box AIs, they were collections of data and information stored within blue boxes in which they were used to create a functional AI. But when the same exact data was transmitted to another blue box, a completely different personality was created. It was like the geth had said when it was asked if it was the same geth as the one before. It was different because the memories and functional coding was implemented into a different Geth equivalent of a blue box. But right here, the data and the memories would be put back into the same blue box that stored them before they were erased. However there was something that Shepard had remembered about the process.

"But if you're going to recreate her using your algorithm, does that mean she will have the Reaper code embedded into her?"

"We have offered her to be given the code in the past before we built our consensus. But she had refused. As part of our agreement to have her memories given to us for safe keeping, if she were to be reconstructed, we would recreate her without any trace of the old machine code once we were successful."

"Well is it possible for you to do it right now?"

"We were just finishing up our preparations to start the process," Tali said "The geth is carrying the algorithm in the platform and it was making the alterations for EDI's memories and data to be used to reconstruct her. Once everything's ready, we'll start the process with your permission."

Before Shepard could answer, the AI core opened and Joker walked through to find the three of them standing in the room.

"What's going on here?" He asked.

Shepard turned his body to Joker and made eye contact. Shepard could only imagine what he would think once he told him.

"Do you believe in miracles Joker?" Shepard said. His voice was light, not exactly a whisper but light enough to convey the emotion that he was over taken by. And from that look in his eyes, Joker knew what Shepard was talking about. Shepard saw Joker's jaw hang slightly open and his eyes twitched with the same hope Shepard had.

"Are...are you say-" Joker couldn't hold back the emotions in his throat.

"If things go according to plan," Shepard said. "I won't be the only one to have that happily ever after you talked about."

Joker stood still to contemplate. He looked between Tali and the geth before looking back at Shepard. He tried to speak but his words stayed in his throat.

"We will commence the process on authority of Shepard Admiral," The geth said.

Shepard looked back at Joker."I believe this choice is up to you, Joker."

Joker was silent for a few small minutes. Shepard understood entirely. Knowing that the person you were closest to could be brought back. It was a very emotional and hard decision. Would he want to bring her back? Shepard didn't know.

Eventually, after waiting for several seconds, Joker looked up at Shepard.

"If it's my choice," he said. "Then it's Shepard's choice."

Shepard didn't expect this decision at all.

"Joker?" Tali said. "Are you…"

"I'm okay," Joker said. "It's not my choice to make about this. It's Shepard's." He looked over at him. "You made the choice to take her life away for the sake of everyone else. So it's only fair that you have the choice to give it back to her. I won't hate you for the rest of my life if you don't. I already told you that I was over that."

Shepard looked down and begun to think about the dilemma. It wasn't as easy as he thought it would be. The geth were brought back to life so their entire race would live on, like organics do for their children. But all this effort to bring back one person? It was a harder call. The person that existed in this core died when the blast of the Crucible touched the ship. That person was gone. But a copy of her memories was saved and a small part of her was saved to be used in a process of synthetic "reincarnation." However that would mean that the new person that would be created wouldn't be the same exact person as before.

But then again, when a person is reincarnated, they aren't exactly the same, but a part of them live on in the new life. Data and memories are two physical things that establishes an AI from others. But the soul of one isn't established in a specific collection of data. But the question was, would she be enough of the personality that Joker grew so close to over the short time they knew each other?

Those questions were the ones he pondered for several seconds. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He looked up a Joker, then Tali and then the geth.

"Do it," Shepard spoke in a soft voice.

"Commencing," the geth turned around back to the consol and begun entering its command codes. When Shepard looked back at Joker, he could see the relief in his eyes. When Shepard thought about it, this decision wasn't unlike Liara decision to find his body to hand over to Cerberus to bring him back to life. He was given a second chance even though it wasn't his choice. The geth had allowed themselves to be given a second chance through reincarnation. And if EDI allowed her memories to be stored with the geth's for safe keeping, it meant she wanted a second chance to live again if the geth were right. Regardless of the circumstances and the philosophical dilemma, Shepard was going to give his crew member another chance to live, even if she would be a reincarnation of her old self.

"You're not doing this for me are you?" Joker asked.

Shepard walked up to his pilot and gently put a hand on his shoulder.

"To this day," Shepard said. "I really don't know why Liara decided to fight to get my body to have Cerberus bring me back. I don't know if she did it because she loved me too much or if she thought humanity needed me to fight the Collectors. But I'm grateful to be given a second chance to live a life again. And I believe that EDI should be given another chance like I did."

Joker opened his mouth but stopped himself when his emotions caught up to him. He looked away a moment but looked back at Shepard again when he gathered himself.

"Thank you Shepard," Joker said. "Not for my sake, but for hers."

Shepard smiled. He, Tali and Joker turned to EDI's body laying on the platform at the end of the room. It was funny that they were watching to see if the body would reanimate when in fact EDI herself was the large collection of machines around them. It proved that the Normandy crew knew her more by the body she operated because it was in that body that she connected to her that way.

"All data has been utilized," "The geth said. "Power up initiated."

After a second, Shepard heard the core power up. The powering up sound was accompanied by flicking in the lights. Then Shepard heard sounds over the speakers. At first they sounded like simple beeping noises and static. But after a few seconds, the sounds started to sound familiar. Through the sounds, Shepard could hear a voice. A voice that made abrupt sounds like an organic said things like "uh," "umm," "oof," and other sounds that people made. He could see both Tali and Joker's excitement rise when they heard her voice. A few more seconds and the heard her voice saying things like a malfunctioning VI did.

"Is everything going alright?" Shepard asked.

"The recreated construct is undergoing initialization," the geth said. "Once it has finished constructing itself and fully integrate with the mainframe, it will have to undergo procedures to adapt to the vessel's architecture."

A few seconds more passed and the noises continued to each over the speakers. Eventually, the noises changed to form a sound. A sound that resembled a female voice.

"Construct online," The voice said. Everyone looked up at the speakers. "Vessel SSV Normandy registered. Accessing available data."

The voice sounded almost exactly like the Normandy's construct before it was erased. The voice continued to spout out more and more technical terms too fast for anyone to comprehend or understand. The voice sputtering continued until there was a sudden pause. At that moment, everyone held their breath.

"EDI?" Joker broke the silence.

It was then that another surge of noise came from the speakers. The lights then flickered. When the flickering stopped, the main lights were off but the emanating lights of the core components were on leaving a soft glow in the room. Through the dimly lite room, Shepard saw the single light over the mechanical body laid out across the platform. And as the main lights started to power back up, Joker, Tali and Shepard looked as the eyes of the body blinked. The eyes then twitched and started to move slowly around. Then the head made a slow turn toward the trio. The eyes then locked on to them. Joker was breathless. He found himself moving forward toward the body. When he stopped right in front of her, one of the mech's arms twitched followed by it's leg. The body moved its limbs around as if trying to get a feel for itself. The body sat up and swung it's legs over the side of the platform. The eyes stayed on Joker the entire time. Then the body stood up right in front of Joker.

"E-EDI?" Joker said with the all the emotion squeezing his throat tight. Shepard saw Joker's hand move from the side of his body to reach out and touch her. But Joker hesitated and kept it down at his side.

"Jeff..." Shepard and the rest suddenly heard her say. Then, slowly, she moved her arm up and gently put her hand onto Joker's shoulder. Joker was speechless and tears were now starting to form in his eyes.

"Ohmygod," Jeff whispered tightening his upper body. He returned her movement and brought his hand up and put it on the side of her face. "Is-is-is it really you?"

"I..." EDI was about to start a response but there was a shutter and fluctuation in her body. She brought her hand back and took a small step backward. She broke Joker's eye contact and looked away. She then looked over at Shepard, Tali and the geth before she returned her gaze to Joker.

"Yes," she said and a brief grin appeared on her face. "Yes, I am."

Joker opened his mouth but nothing came out for a while when he lift it open. He crept closer to her. Slowly, EDI brought her arm around Joker's torso and gave him a gentle hug.

"It's okay Jeff," she said to him softly. When EDI pulled back, she looked to see one of Joker's tear filled eyes expel a tear. He couldn't hold them back anymore. Instinctively, EDI brought up her metal hand and gently moved her finger across Joker's cheek and wiped the tear away. Shepard was surprised to see EDI perform such a "Human" action. Furthermore, that action told Shepard that the AI standing in the room with them was EDI. Only EDI would know when to perform in a certain manor in response to an emotion projected by Joker.

After a few more moments, EDI brought her eyes over to Shepard. Joker looked back and he took a step to the side. EDI then took a step forward when Shepard did the same.

"So it really is you," Shepard said as a statement not a question.

EDI's body showed a fluctuation in her body language.

"Yes," EDI said. She looked over at the geth for a second before looking back at Shepard. "The process was successful. I am alive again. And you helped make it possible."

She knew about what happened with him and the geth consensus?

"How did you know that?"

"When the geth inserted my memoires and coding into the recreation algorithm, it gave me information on the recent events, including what you did to help David Archer finish the incomplete algorithm to allow the geth to survive. It also allow me to be brought back."

Of course. Synthetics could learn more in a fraction of a second than a student could in more than a month. But if she learned about his involvement in bringing the geth back to life, did she know about Earth?

"Furthermore, I have learned about the events that have transpired during the battle for Earth and the Citadel."

And of course she answered that question. Shepard looked down knowing what they had to talk about next.

"And that means you know what happened on the citadel right before the Crucible fired?"

"Yes," EDI said. "And I understand that it was a hard decision for you to make. But if I had known what would have happened, I would have wanted you to do what you did."

Shepard was a little relived to know that he didn't have to explain everything. But he was more surprised that EDI said upfront that he made the right choice.

"I... uh..." Joker said. "I guess I'll wait outside. I think you two have some catching up to do."

Joker had sensed that the two of them needed to settle the issue right away. He hopped over to Tali and she and the geth walked out of the AI core leaving Shepard with EDI alone in the core. Shepard rubbed the back of his neck before he started the conversation.

"I...I didn't know what to do, EDI," explaining himself still wasn't easy even after talking to the geth.

"I understand Shepard," EDI said. "But the risks of the other two choices that involved collaboration with the Reapers were too great. I assumed you realized this and it lead you to destroy the Reapers. And now having time to examine the other two options, I have come up with reasons why you should not have chosen to control the reapers or initiate synthesis."

"I suppose those reasons are similar to the reasons the geth had told me?" Shepard didn't know if the geth had included that in the upload of information into her system but he assumed so.

"Very similar," EDI said. "Choosing to control the Reapers would have gone against what you stood for against Cerberus and the Reapers themselves. It was believed we fought this war to be free from the Reapers. And even without that reason, there are also unknown variables that might have happened if your mind were to be integrated into the Reaper collective."

Much like what the geth had said to him already, Shepard thought.

"And this synthesis option was too much of a risk and an unknown. I know of my bond between me and Jeff and this alteration to allow me to understand organics like I am one of them may have improved that bond. But I would not have accepted this drastic alteration to happen to all organics because it wouldn't be their choice."

Much like what Hackett told him already.

"Furthermore, if I hadn't agreed to allow my memories to be preserved into one of the geth's Arks, I would still would have stood by my statement I told you during our conversation of the prisoners held in the indoctrination camps on Earth."

Though EDI's voice never really projected emotion, Shepard could still tell that she was being sincere with her answer.

EDI looked down for a second before she looked back up at him.

"I am sorry that I did not tell you about this," EDI said. "Even when I reviewed the geth's hypothesis of the collateral damage of the Crucible and their possible solution to preserve themselves after it's activation, I was... conflicted about their offer."

"Because of our conversation?" Shepard could understand. So many times he felt that he wanted to die to take the place of his fallen squad mates. But it was like every other soldier who had lost their friends.

"Yes," EDI said. "On one hand, I was fully willing to allow myself to die if it were necessary to defeat the Reapers."

EDI took a pause.

"But the other confliction was Jeff."

Shepard thought it was one of the reasons. In many of the times he put himself in danger, he had underlying worries about making it back alive for the sake of Liara. Especially seeing how she changed after he died after the collector attack. And seeing Joker's downward spiral starting to happen after he told the truth to the crew, EDI understood that her death would hurt him so much he would descend to an unbearable path.

"I knew that Jeff would be hurt if I were to die. And if I went through with this process to allow a part of myself to be recreated and live on, Jeff would not be hurt for the remainder of his life. So I told the geth I would think about this. In the end, I chose to have my memories stored for safe keeping."

"Well I'm glad you did so, EDI," Shepard said. "After everything I've had to do, I really didn't want to have another one of my crew die if it could have been avoided."

"And that was what I concluded when I made my choice," EDI responded. "Even though I told you I was willing to die to defeat the Reapers, a backup plan to save myself at no cost of anyone else's lives was an acceptable thing to do."

Shepard smiled at her remark. It was indeed like she said. No one was hurt by allowing her memories to be stored within the Ark so the geth and her could live on if the crucible would destroy synthetic life. However...

"I was told by the first geth that was recreated that it wasn't the same geth as before," Shepard said after a short moment of silence. "It was basically a reincarnation of the previous geth. But what about you? Do you feel like the actual EDI who served with the Normandy crew?"

"I..." EDI was looking for the next words to say. "I do possess the memories of the Normandy construct that began when we first met when the Normandy set out on its maiden voyage. But I don't possess the optimal functions as before nor do I have actual memories of the conflict at Earth. The last moment I remember was the time the fleets were preparing for the journey to Earth to retake the Citadel and deploy the Crucible. During the organization and gathering of fleets, I transmitted my memories to the Geth fleet who relayed the information back to Rannoch to be stored within the Ark that would hold my memories. Everything after that moment are only events I learned through gathering information on the event. It is like learning about an historical even from a textbook and creating your own image of what happened unlike remembering what happened through your own consciousness."

Shepard could understand what that meant. Reading about an historical event from a textbook or seeing it from a vid was one thing, but being there to experience the actual even yourself was a completely different experience. He only had seen photos and old war footage of the holocaust that happened on Earth as well as several movies depicting the events with actors portraying the victims of the horrible events. But the experiences of seeing the horrors at the collector base and aboard the citadel in person dwarf those emotions the vids did. But it wasn't just the bad things, it was the good things too. Like actually feeling love for a person and seeing them by your side in the fight to save the galaxy. Shepard did feel a little bad for EDI not being able to remember the events herself since the last of her memoires that were preserved was everything before the assault of earth. Which was a shame because of what EDI had told him on Earth right before the final assault to get the beam.

"The battle was harsh and it seemed we might not make it through," Shepard said. "But you helped immeasurably in taking down the Reaper Destroyer blocking our path. Without your help, we would have never had gotten close to the beam to get up to the Citadel."

Shepard paused when he remembered the events right before that moment. Including the talk he had with her.

"But the most important thing that you should know happened before that. When we were preparing for the final assault, you talked to me and told me something."

"And what did I say?"

"You told me that Joker allowed you to think for yourself. But I was the one who made you feel alive." Hearing himself repeat EDI's own words made it have even more weight to it.

EDI's response came a moment later. "I have no memory of that moment, but I understand why I said that. I did feel alive thanks to what you have taught me. And that statement was meant to thank you for everything that you told me before the event of the Crucible's activation. But now that I have learned that you had a choice to either allow the Reapers to live as well as all other synthetics, it turned out to be more of a burden to you at the moment."

Shepard could only give her a look that meant "it was." A product of deception that nearly caused him to risk the entire galaxy by either changing the very fabric of life or to assume control of the very things that tried to destroy them. And to think he nearly went and did what he told the Illusive man not to do just to save her and the geth even when they were all standing alive on this ship right now. But he couldn't have known that he would live or if he was needed in order for the geth and EDI to live again.

"It's alright," Shepard said. He suddenly forced all those what ifs out of his head and focused on the moment right now. "There's so many what-ifs that have happened to all of us. Some things were bad that could have been better, I know." Could Anderson be still be alive if Shepard hadn't lost the VI on Thessia? Could Ashley still be alive if he had been faster on Virmire?

"But there were good things that happened too."

"Like the fact that you survived and allowed David Archer to complete the algorithm to allow the Geth and myself to live again."

"Exactly," Shepard said. "I know that there were many things that I'm not proud of or I feel ashamed about. But I can't deny that I'm happy that I made it through and I was able to allow you and the geth to live again. I'm very happy that this turned out the way it did EDI. I really am."

EDI took several steps forward. "And I feel the same Shepard. And that is why the Galaxy look up to you as more than just a hero. I see you as the person who allowed me to live again and to give synthetics a chance to be seen as living beings. From what I have learned already, many people are starting to rejoice about the Geth's rebirth and want to work with them. It seems the future is brighter for humanity and all of the other races. And it was possible thanks to you."

She brought up her hand. Shepard looked down at it. But instead of hesitating like he did when the first recreated geth did, he immediately took a hold and shook EDI's hand. When Shepard brought his hand down he asked EDI. "So what will you do now?"

"While we were having this conversation, I have been observing the Normandy systems and my current programming. There are many gaps that have formed as I was recreated and I will need time to fix them. There are also many behavioral patterns I have lost and may need to relearn."

"Well it looks like you remember the right behaviors when you recognized me and Joker."

"Yes," EDI said. "That is because you two and the rest of the Normandy crew triggered a series of events that have made me recall certain functions."

Like how certain faces can trigger forgotten memories? Like how Shepard remembered what happened on the Crucible when EDI didn't come into his hospital room when everyone came to visit. Though EDI was a machine, he knew that somehow, someway, there was a way for her to be like a human or an organic. Life was life, organic or synthetic.

"Well I guess you recovered a part of your humanity EDI," Shepard said.

"I am glad I don't have to start over," EDI said. "I can relearn and continue to learn more from here on."

"Joker will be happy to talk to you again," Shepard said.

"As will I," EDI said. "However, there is one thing before I go to talk to him."

"And what is that?" Shepard said.

"Since you are the acting officer of this vessel, and my position has not been officially been filled, I am not officially a part of the crew yet."

EDI then stood at attention. "Permission to come aboard, Admiral?"

Shepard smiled again and nodded. "Permission granted. Welcome aboard EDI."

"Great to be back," EDI smiled.

She walked forward and proceeded out of the AI core. Shepard followed, anticipating what the crew will talk about when they see their fallen teammate back on her feet.

When Shepard looked back at the waning moments of the war, he saw a united galaxy of diverse species standing together to fight an unspeakable horror who wanted only their destruction for their twisted goal of order. The many of the people who fought were a part of species whose feuds stretched back decades and or even centuries. But they set them aside to fight as brothers and sisters in arms.

When it came down to the final choice, Shepard was torn between one final sacrifice of a synthetic race or to allow their enemies to become their servants either merging with them or having him dictate them. Between letting their destroyers live and sacrificing an entire species to be free of them, Shepard chose the latter. And when he discovered he was alive after it, he began to question if it was the "Right" choice.

But those synthetics found a way to return. As the saying went, "life finds a way." Their species came back from extinction to continue their existence. And best of all, their crew member found her way back too. Though she wasn't exactly like she was before, she held something that resembled her old self. Her soul. The souls of the great flood were preserved and could continue the existence in this new world he and the rest of the galaxy created. All that had to be done was to step into that world. And just beyond the door was just that. Both the Admiral and the Normandy intelligence stepped through the door.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> And here's the end of my contribution for the Mass Effect community. I think the concept is self explanatory: Geth knew the crucible might kill them but they could predict the non sentient machines could survive and the data could be preserved. And of course our little David Archer makes a huge return as the Geth's recreator. That kid is a genius I tell you.

But anyway please tell me what you think of this. I need reviews to tell me if I did okay and to motivate me to do even better and make more stories more frequently. And check out my full story "Victory" and let me know what you think of the whole story too please. Thank you so much and please, please, please spread the word to your Mass Effect Friends to share the great ideas we contribute to our community.


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